Dr. Fatima Assouab is a psychiatric doctor and a member of the Moroccan Association of Psychiatrists since 1989. She is currently the head of the Mental Health and Degenerative Diseases Office in the Ministry of Health in Morocco. She has also been responsible for the National Programme to Fight Against Mental Diseases and for the National Programme to Fight Against Psychoactive Substances Addictions since 2005, in addition to her position as the manager of the harm reduction programme in Morocco’s Ministry of Health.

Dr. Assouab has a Master’s degree in Public health and an MD doctorate with a national certificate of psychiatric option from the University of Hassan II in Casablanca, Morocco. She is a founding member of the Moroccan Association of Psychiatrists of the public sector. In 2010, she was appointed president of the Rabat section for RdR - Maroc Association (Harm Reduction - Morocco) and responsible for the Médecins du Monde – France’s Harm Reduction Mission in Dar Essalam, Tanzania.

As a psychiatric doctor, Dr. Assouab has actively participated in many meetings and events organised by WHO-EMRO. She has partaken in the inter-country meeting of WHO-EMRO on the evaluation of national mental health programmes, a number of training workshops and trainings organised by UN agencies (UNODC, UNAIDS) that focus mainly on HIV and drug use topics, she was the main author of WHO-AIMS, and was temporary advisor on mental health. She was also part of the inter-country meeting on legislation and human rights, and the launch of the MENAHRA project with WHO and IHRA followed by meetings with the Project Managers Group of MENAHRA to establish the project framework. Dr. Assouab has also participated in inter-country meetings of EMRO on mhGAP in the EMRO region, in addition to being a temporary advisor for the regional consultation to develop a regional mental health strategy on the implementation process of mhGAP.

In 2011, she participated in the first meeting of the Global Network of WHO national counterparts for the implementation of the Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol in Geneva, Switzerland. Dr. Assouab was consequently designated a member of the Global Network for the Implementation of the Global Strategy.